The summer Music Village - Europe's longest-running festival of world cultures - makes an immediate return to London's Hyde Park this July after a hugely popular debut event in 2007.
Twenty groups of London-based performers are featured in two jam-packed days of top class music, dance and spoken word from all over the world. The line-up includes African, Latin, Jewish, Asian, Kurdish, East European and Chinese performance styles, to reflect decades of converging migrations into London from every corner of the earth.
Festival Director, Prakash Daswani, sets the scene for 2008:
"All the performers in this year's global line-up are London-based, though the origins of most lie way beyond these shores. Some are emerging superstars - or long-hidden gems - within the city's broad sweep of diaspora communities. Others have already attained mainstream popular acclaim, both within the capital and far further afield. Together, they represent some of the fruits of ever-increasing cross-cultural mingling in this, the 21st century's leading World City. And what better place for people to enjoy this profusion of artistic talent than in this year's superb festival setting: a gladed natural amphitheatre nestling by the Serpentine in Hyde Park, central London's most popular green space. This year's event presents an easy way for Londoners of all national origins and faith persuasions - or none - and all social backgrounds and ages, to come together and experience this thriving, cosmopolitan, creative, and above all, forward-looking, enterprise, of which they themselves are an indispensable part"
Programme Saturday 12th July (Programme Subject to Change - exact timings tbc)
1pm London Uyghur Ensemble China
2pm Guillermo and Rioplatenses Argentina
3pm London Jing Kun Opera China
4pm Cheb Nacim Algeria
5pm Jyotsna Srikanth India
6pm Klezmer Klub Jewish
7pm Osvaldo Chacun Cuba
8pm Africa Jambo Congo
Programme Sunday 13th July (Programme Subject to Change - exact timings tbc)
1pm Panache Steelband Caribbean
2pm PinknRuby Slovenia
Koma Roji Nwe Kurdish
Jide Chord and the Natives Abroad Nigeria
Khantara Colombia
Gnawa Taroudant Morocco
Harare Zimbabwe
Palenke Band Latin American